“Everything Can Be Different”
An educator integrating the Better Day tools into her elementary school classes said this: “Everything can be different. Believe it!” At the time of this quote, I think this teacher was referring to everything challenging in her school. Concerning behaviors. Burnout. Overwhelm among students and teachers. But for me, as time passes, the everything we need to make different has expanded to something so much bigger. Safety in our schools is a growing concern as is the emotional state of our children.
One of the indicators that a student is in trouble, is isolation, lack of connection and a sense of not belonging. What we are coming to understand, is that classroom teachers, friends, counselors, classmates and/or any other adult in a student’s life are often in the position to change everything by engaging and connecting with the difficult to engage student. This sort of loving, supportive connection can mitigate intentions of suicide and/or violent behaviors in our young people. We know this. But HOW?
That is why we are so proud and hopeful to be offering A Better Day to all youth influencers. It’s helpful to make the point that we need to connect with our students but A Better Day goes beyond helpful. We provide the HOW. Having available easy to use, step-by-step tools takes connection and student care from the philosophical into practical action.
When using the Better Day tools here’s what we know about success:
81% of Better Day students made measurable progress in improving concerning behaviors including acting out, and isolation and lack of attendance for older students. Once these behaviors are mitigated, academic improvement is the result. 5% of Better Day students have gone beyond measurable improvement, demonstrating miraculous results including going from non-verbal to verbal literally overnight in the pre-school setting and going from failing all classes at the high school level to passing all classes in a matter of a few short weeks.
As a retired educator, and having used the Better Day power tools since 2004, observing what connection and engagement can do gives me hope. It is true that everything really can be different. These tools also guide us into more astute observation on what a student might need to feel seen, supported and cared for. And in many cases, that can be everything to a student. Even life saving.
Much of the media outreach we are exposed to can most often show us what happens when a student falls through the cracks, school and community shootings and suicide, being the negative extremes. But what would happen if we shift our focus and observe what happens when we connect, understand and engage a suffering child just about to fall through the cracks? What happens when we catch them and watch the healing happen?
That is our hope, and the results we’ve seen as we apply A Better Day Curriculum.
We created A Better Day Curriculum with the understanding of how overwhelmed and burned out all us in education can become. My advice is this: Try it. You’ll love how it feels. You’ll love how it works. Expect good things. And once we learn to expect good things, maybe we’ll learn to expect miracles!
